Ann: Results of Meeting, page-6

'Southern dickheads' proved right on CuDeco

Date
August 18, 2010

Wayne McCrae's CuDeco has come crashing back to earth after an updated resource estimate for its Rocklands copper project in north Queensland massively disappointed the company's faithful followers - so faithful in fact that they would have you believe Rocklands was the next best thing to sliced bread.
But it is not. More than four years in the making, the resource update was all of 30.94 million tonnes grading 1.24 per cent copper equivalent (after cobalt credits) at the measured and indicated resource level.
Shares in CuDeco halved in value, losing $2.34 a share, or 49 per cent, to $2.45 by the close, wiping out more than $300 million in value.

So all those "southern dickheads" who dared to question if Rocklands was all it was cracked up to be were right afterall. Rocklands barely makes it as a development opportunity.

Southern dickheads was a term that those associated with Cudeco used to deflect criticism from analysts and media in the southern states in 2006 that Rocklands was not all it was cracked up to be.
Today's savaging of CuDeco - $223 million million has been wiped from its value - would normally have fired up an almighty debate on investor chatroom site HotCopper. But earlier this week, and ahead of today's bombshell, CuDeco effectively shutdown any discussion by saying it was planning to file Supreme Court claims against HotCopper and two "posters" on the chatroom, claiming misleading and deceptive conduct and injurious falsehood.

The lengthy gestation in the CuDeco making the updated resource reflects the caning it took in 2006 when it was forced to admit it had seriously overstated the size of the Rocklands copper discovery, based on drilling results at the time.

Instead of containing 59 million tonnes of copper mineralisation in the official inferred resource category, Rocklands — at the then early stage of exploration — was lucky to have 25 million tonnes of mineralisation. Tens of millions of dollars later and four years of multi-rig drilling and there is not a lot more to show than what was known in 2006.

Back in 2006 the Australian Securities Exchange suspended the stock while an independent expert it appointed vetted the company's announcements on Rocklands to ensure they complied with the strict listing requirements for the reporting of mineral discoveries. That process led to the then dramatic downgrading of the discovery. But CuDeco has nevertheless had a charmed life since, up to today at least.
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Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/sout...t-on-cudeco-20100818-12bch.html#ixzz3uGRf6t00
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